SOLD Garden Biscuit © 2014 Karen Mathison Schmidt 6 x 6 inches • oil on archival, museum-quality GessobordTM private collection • Seminole, Florida Here’s my friend Ramona’s tortoise-shell tabby, Biscuit. The third of my paintings over the last few years to feature her. It’s always such a joy to paint Her Fluffiness. Well, Pantoufle has graduated to eating on his own; no more bottle feedings. Aaaww … and woo-hoo! (that’s both a sad face AND a happy face.) For all our English-speaking friends who have been questioning how to pronounce his name, it’s not difficult. It’s easiest to think of the “le” at the end as silent, so just say, “pon-TOOF.” If you want to be a stickler and pronounce it the French way, each syllable has the exact same emphasis, and there is a very subtle touching of the tongue to the roof of the mouth at the very end. For the last little while, Pantoufle and Jo have been playing hide-and-seek on my desk. Now Jo is waiting for Pantoufle to come around to her end of the computer. I think she’s going to be waiting for a bit longer.